The Reading Report, Vol. 21: 2020 Year in Review

My, oh my, how time does fly! Moving to a new state and getting all settled, home renovations, homeschooling, Revelation Wellness Instructor Training, and podcast jobs have all kept me on my toes this fall! They have also taken so much of my physical and mental energy that blogging has taken a sad hit this year. But I have some time today, and I wanted to sit down and look back on this year in my reading life. Maybe sometime I will get around to a more general “life update” type of post before the end of 2020. For now, though, I just want to talk books for a bit. Hope that’s good with you! 😉

Back to the Classics Challenge Report

It looks like I haven’t written reviews here for all the books I read for the challenge, and I have ended up just one book shy of completing all 12. But that’s not bad for a year that ended in a whirlwind of activity and very little reading time! Here is my (almost) completed B2tC Challenge List:

The Literary Life 20 for 20 Challenge Report

For the year’s Literary Life 20 for 2020 challenge, I also am just one title short of a complete list, with only my “high school re-read” category left unread. Here are the books I did end up finishing:

Scholé Sisters 5×5 Challenge Report:

The 5×5 challenge was by far the one I most neglected, but I did read some interesting new things that I wouldn’t have tried otherwise. Let’s see how things shaped up. Titles marked with a ^ are finished. Those with a ~ were started by not finished. Unmarked titles are ones I never even cracked open!

Mathematics

  1. ^ Here’s Looking at Euclid by Alex Bellos ^
  2. ~A Mind for Numbers by Barbara Oakley~
  3. ^ The Joy of X by Steven Strogatz ^
  4. Math with Bad Drawings by Ben Orlin
  5. Change is the Only Constant by Ben Orlin

Biography/Memoire

  1. ^ Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser ^
  2. An American Princess by Annette van der Zijl
  3. ~ Ocean of Truth by Joyce McPherson ~
  4. ~The Wilderness World of John Muir by John Muir (ed. Edwin Way Teale)~
  5. ^ My Family and Other Animals by George Durell ^

Theology/Christianity

  1. ^ The Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer ^
  2. ^ In the Name of Jesus by Henri Nouwen ^
  3. ~ Missional Motherhood by Gloria Furman ~
  4. Knowing God by J. I. Packer 
  5. ^ Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton ^

Health/Wellness

  1. ^ The Wellness Revelation by Alisa Keeton ^
  2. Move Your DNA by Katy Bowman
  3. The Mind-Gut Connection by Emeran Mayer
  4. ^ The Complete Homeopathy Handbook by Miranda Castro ^
  5. ~ Blue Mind by Wallace J. Nichols ~

Literary Fiction

  1. ^ A Room with a View by E. M. Forster ^
  2. ^ A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens ^
  3. ^ Silas Marner by George Eliot ^
  4. ^ The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde ^
  5. ^ Imperial Woman by Pearl S. Buck ^

Summing It All Up:

In the end, I am pretty happy with my reading for the year. With all that has happened in my little world, not to mention the greater craziness that has been 2020, I think I did pretty well with these challenges and am pleased that I stretched my reading life in some new directions. Plus, there are so many more books not on these lists, things I read to my kids, audio books we shared together, or that I listened to on my own, as well as some fun, lighter reading that I have enjoyed indulging in here at the year’s end. (I’m looking at you, Alexander McCall Smith.)

It remains to be seen whether I will attempt another Scholé Sisters 5×5 Challenge in 2021, but I will definitely be on board for The Literary Life’s 19 Books in 2021 challenge. My son will even be joining in on their kids’ version of the challenge this year! It also looks like Karen is hosting yet another Back to the Classics Challenge for 2021, so I will be checking that out, too! (The books on my B2tC list were honestly some of my favorite books for the whole year.)

How did you do with your personal reading goals this year? I would love for you to drop me a comment or link to your challenge reports. Let’s chat books! 🙂

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